Scrapbook Notebook Series Scrapbook #6 | Page 20

before the Beatles being Elvis Presley’s eponymous album of 1956, which was famously to be used as the inspiration for The Clash’s London Calling (1979) cover as well as Tom Wait’s Rain Dogs (1985). In the same way that Pennie Smith captured the raw punk spirit The Clash were trying to encapsulate, the photograph of Presley, off-centre and juxtaposed with the seated DJ Fontana draws the energy of Rock ‘n’ Roll into focus – Elvis unable to be contained. The highlight of The Beatle’s dalliance with album artwork was the Peter Blake designed Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), a cover which cost £2,868 5s/3d to produce, estimated at around 100 times the average cost of an album cover at the time, as well as causing a great deal of problems for EMI in trying to get the permission for the images used in Michael Cooper’s photograph. Over 70 celebrated figures featured, as well as The Beatle’s themselves, not only in their Sgt. Pepper’s guises but also the Madame Tussaud waxworks depicting A selection of classic vinyl album covers predominantly form the 1970s “ “ What the music industry failed to take into account is that people do not necessarily want listening to music to be a pragmatic task. their famous mop-haired period. Hitler, Ghandi and Jesus were requested by the band, but EMI supposed this would cause too much controversy, whilst the band had to personally write to Mae West to persuade her to be included. Even earlier The Velvet Underground teamed music with cutting edge art when Andy Warhol ‘produced’ their debut album, The Velvet Underground and Nico, stamping his contribution with the renowned banana sleeve design. Initial runs of the album had the banana skin stuck on, when peeled revealing a phallic, fleshed coloured banana. Warhol’s most significant collaboration came with the Rolling Stones for 1971’s Sticky Fingers, the cover featuring a working jeans fly which unzipped to reveal a man’s white cotton pants. Without the large format these album covers would never have come about. Who knows, the resurgence in vinyl could bring about the return of the album of two halves again; meticulously planned to take the listener on a journey, the halfway point necessitated by the two sided format and rendered unattainable by the CD and digital download. 131